Designers, recent graduates, students and talented young guns are being given the chance to shine and bring their work to the attention of a wider audience - including respected industry experts - in a new design visualisation competition from software developer, Autodesk.

As part of Autodesk’s new competition, the industry-leading software company will be supporting some of the UK’s hottest design visualisation talent, with the winner receiving a high-end graphics card worth over £1,000 from ATI, and runners-up prizes of ATI graphics cards for second and third places.

To be in with a chance of winning, budding 3D designers must post a link to their 3D visualisation or design visualisation showreel in any format (i.e. YouTube video, Flickr slideshow, blog, etc.) as a comment reply to the competition post on the Autodesk Showcase UK blog [http://www.autodeskshowcase.co.uk/are-you-a-3d-star-time-to-showcase-your-talent/], along with a description no longer than 140 characters explaining why they think they’re the hottest design visualisation talent around.

As part of the judging criteria, Autodesk will be measuring how many ‘Likes’ each post attracts so entrants are encouraged to spread the word about their entry via social media using Twitter, Facebook and recruiting friends and family to vote for their showreels. After four weeks, Autodesk’s judges will make a shortlist, before announcing the winner and runners-up on Wednesday 25th August 2010.

For more information on the competition, including full terms and conditions please visit:
http://www.autodeskshowcase.co.uk/are-you-a-3d-star-time-to-showcase-your-talent/

Pixologic, Inc., makers of the award winning ZBrush is pleased to announce that it will be unveiling the latest software in the Pixologic line - ZBrush Version 4.0 (for Win and Mac) at Siggraph 2010 show Los Angeles Convention Center 27th-29th July 2010.

Pixologic also announced that following the ’sneak preview’ at Siggraph 2010, ZBrush 4.0 will be available to the public for purchase and download on 8/9/10 (Monday 9th August 2010).

Those visiting the Siggraph exhibition floor will have the opportunity to pre- purchase a special edition package of ZBrush 4.0 at the Pixologic Booth!

ZBrush is the leading 2D/3D digital sculpting application for artists today and is used extensively in the film, game, toy and collectible industries as well as scientific illustration.

Pixologic will be hosting hourly demonstrations at Booth #709 where attendees, users and newcomers will see and explore the latest exciting ZBrush 4.0 features, presented live by industry renowned character modeling artists and supervisors- from Disney Animation Studios, Blur Studios, Naughty Dog and other top film and gaming studios.

View the Pixologic/Siggraph 2010 page for a complete list and profile of presenters:

Bryan Wynia - Character Artist, Naughty Dog
David Lesperance - Environmental Artist
Jeff Feligno - Character Artist, Sucker Punch Productions
Jelmer Boskma - Freelance Artist
Joel Mongeon - Microsoft Game Studio
Leonardo Sanchez Barbossa - Disney Animation Studios
Neville Page - Concept Designer
Steve Jubinville - Lead Character Artist, Meduzarts
Sze Jones - Character Modeling Supervisor, Blur Studios
Tully Summers - Freelance Artist
Zack Petroc - Zack Petroc Studios

Jimmy Golding, Marketing Director at Pixologic commented:

”This is the 10th anniversary year of ZBrush! We are looking forward to a very exciting show and the opportunity to reveal the latest features of ZB4 to our fans, community, newcomers and future talent.”

Booth #709 Los Angeles Convention Center

The Foundry, a world-leading developer of visual effects software whose products have been used to create ambitious VFX sequences in recent box office blockbusters such as Iron Man 2, Avatar, and Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, has entered into a unique relationship with Walt Disney Animation Studios to advance 3D texture painting techniques announced Bill Collis, CEO, The Foundry. In addition to incorporating elements of Disney’s internally developed Paint 3D technology into Mari, Walt Disney Animation Studios’ technology group will participate in a Mari steering committee, contributing to the future direction of the software.

Paint 3D offers some of the industry’s most advanced aspects of paint and texture creation technology. Paint 3D is also the original development ground and authoring tool for Ptex, Disney’s revolutionary open source texture mapping system that eliminates the need for UV mapping and efficiently stores hundreds of thousands of images in a single file. This represents the first time Walt Disney Animation Studios has commercially licensed its proprietary animation software to an outside company.

“The technology group at Walt Disney Animation Studios is proud to have created some of the most innovative software in the industry and we’re thrilled to be contributing technology to The Foundry to make these next generation tools available to everyone,” said Dan Candela, director of technology at Walt Disney Animation Studios. “We’re looking forward to expanding our relationship with The Foundry, using their technology to help create 3D paint and texture tools that leverage the best of our mutual technologies.”

“The addition of Mari to the product portfolio earlier this year has launched us into a new market,” said Collis. “This agreement with Walt Disney Animation Studios provides access to their Paint 3D technology with its industry-proven toolset, powerful procedural paint and definitive Ptex paint infrastructure. It’s a natural complement to Mari and we’re very excited about producing new solutions.”

Paint 3D was first used on Disney’s 2005 animated feature, Chicken Little, and was widely deployed on Meet the Robinsons (2007), Bolt (2008), and all subsequent animated projects including the upcoming November release, Tangled. Disney first used Ptex on the production of its animated short, Glago’s Guest, in late 2007, and went on to present it publicly for the first time at the Eurographics Symposium on Rendering (EGSR) in June 2008. I (I Its enthusiastic reception was followed in January 2010 by an announcement of the availability of the Ptex technology as open source.

Mari – technology originally developed at Weta Digital – is a 3D texture painting application. The technology was driven by the need to handle complex, high-resolution textures on 3D models. Mari was designed as a full 3D paint tool with a responsiveness and feature set that exceeds the best dedicated 2D paint systems. Mari is extremely scalable, coping easily with extremes level of detail – literally, thousands of textures – quickly and elegantly.

Autodesk, Inc. has acquired Illuminate Labs, a privately held maker of lighting technology for game development. Illuminate Labs’ Beast middleware solution and Turtle plug-in for Autodesk Maya software enable faster iteration on a game’s creative intent, and more realistic in-game lighting. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“We welcome Illuminate Labs customers and employees to Autodesk,” said Marc Stevens, VP Games, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “Technological progress is a mainstay of the games industry. Autodesk is committed to helping game developers be more competitive with modern pipelines. We want our customers to spend less time building workflows and solving redundant problems, and more time realising their creative vision for the game.”

Stevens added: “Advanced lighting solutions help game developers achieve their aesthetic goals, enhancing the game’s design and story. Lighting brings games to life by defining environments, establishing mood, creating atmosphere and guiding players. Illuminate Labs’ lighting technology and workflow tailored to game development are some of the most advanced in the industry. They complement Autodesk’s games middleware offering.” Autodesk also offers Autodesk HumanIK character animation middleware and Autodesk Kynapse artificial intelligence middleware.

Magnus Wennerholm, previously Illuminate Labs CEO, said, “In just a few years, Beast and Turtle have become production-proven technologies for in-game lighting. Leading game developers like Sony Computer Entertainment, Nintendo America and THQ/Heavy Iron rely on these tools to help deliver higher visual quality in their games. My team and I are excited about the technology development opportunities that Autodesk has to offer. I believe that this acquisition will benefit both Autodesk and Illuminate Labs customers.” Wennerholm and the Illuminate Labs team are joining Autodesk Media & Entertainment.

Autodesk plans to develop and sell Illuminate Labs’ technology and support Illuminate Labs customers. Autodesk anticipates that Beast middleware will continue to be licensed as a standalone product. Autodesk plans to incorporate Turtle into future offerings, and discontinue licensing it as a standalone product.

Illuminate Labs customers needing product support are requested to contact support@illuminatelabs.com. If you are interested in evaluating Beast or Turtle technology, please contact sales@illuminatelabs.com.

The hugely popular Digital Photographer of the Year Awards returns for 2010 – this time with backing from photography giant, Samsung

Imagine Publishing and Samsung are joining forces to launch the fourth annual Digital Photography of the Year awards, with better prizes and categories than ever before. Fresh from celebrating over one million copy sales earlier this year, Digital Photographer magazine anticipates record a number of submissions for the competition in 2010, with the overall winner receiving a Samsung NX10, three lenses and a flashgun kit. Six category winners will each receive a Samsung EX1 camera.

Rosie Tanner, Editor of Digital Photographer, is brimming with expectation for DPOTY ’10: “The DPOTY awards offer digital photographers a fantastic platform to showcase their work across a wide range of categories. It’s an amazing opportunity for fresh talent to emerge and we can’t wait to celebrate new and undiscovered digital photographers. The fact that such a prestigious camera company like Samsung is supporting the awards is a huge compliment. Its support means the competition and prizes will be better than ever before.”

Since its launch back in 2007, the DPOTY awards has seen year-on-year success and is now widely recognised by the photography industry as one of the top photographic competitions of its kind. The judging panel for the 2010 awards features some of the country’s top photographic professionals including big names such as Guardian Picture Editor, Eamonn McCabe and pro photographer, William Cheung FRPS.

The call for entries opens on the 15 July, which coincides with the on-sale date of Digital Photographer issue 98. In contrast to previous years, the format of the awards for 2010 will see a brand new competition category launched in each issue of the magazine. There will be six photographic categories in total – each designed to push the creativity of photographers. The categories are:

The Big Picture – Landscapes

Get Creative – Creative/image editing/HDR

Rosie Tanner added, “The categories we’ve picked this year are reflective of the creative capabilities of Samsung’s fantastic NX10 and EX1 cameras. There is definitely a category to suit every photographic taste, so we look forward to seeing a broad range of subject matter.”

Steve Mitchell, General Manager Marketing, Samsung Digital Imaging said: “Samsung is proud to be part of Digital Photographer of the Year 2010. We have a longstanding relationship with Digital Photographer magazine and we are particularly pleased to have been chosen by the team to be the main sponsor of DPOTY.

The Digital Photographer of the Year competition showcases some of the most exciting photographs every year and with the creative possibilities offered by the Samsung camera range it is a perfect partnership which will inspire any photographer. We are looking forward to judging and awarding the very best photography in this year’s competition.”

For all the details on how to enter, look out for Digital Photographer issue 98 on sale 15 July 2010 or head online to www.DPhotographer.co.uk.

www.DPhotographer.co.uk

Southpaw Technology integrates its asset management solution TACTIC with The Foundry’s NUKE compositing application to speed and secure workflow

Southpaw Technology, a leading developer of production digital asset management (DAM) technology for digital entertainment and enterprise companies, has unveiled a deep integration between its ultra-flexible DAM solution, TACTIC™, and The Foundry’s premier compositing application, NUKE™. The integration will vastly improve the creative workflow for compositors working with NUKE by alleviating the mundane tasks associated with file management.

With the TACTIC-NUKE integration, compositing artists working in TACTIC can instantly see what their tasks are for a specific shot, access their shot list, launch NUKE, load the most recent version (or older versions) of a shot, check in a file and more. This timesaving union of technologies frees compositors to focus on creating shots, rather than spending time on finding and securing files, or moving files through the production pipeline.

“Securing, tracking and versioning shots is a complete headache for most artists and most productions,” said Dr. Bill Collis, CEO of The Foundry. “As productions grow in size, the headaches will only get worse. We’re really excited about this new integration because it will not only solve many of the file management problems that slow productions down; it will boost the quality of composites by freeing artists to spend more time on shot creation.”

“Artists like to create, not manage the files they create,” said Gary Mundell, CEO of Southpaw Technology. “File management tasks waste a lot of time, and in productions, wasted time is wasted money. The TACTIC-NUKE integration changes the game by getting rid of the time-consuming tasks and shifting the focus back to productivity, where it should be.”

The TACTIC-NUKE integration is now available and will be on display at Southpaw’s SIGGRAPH 2010, booth #205. For additional information, please visit www.southpawtech.com

Chaos Group will be in full force at SIGGRAPH 2010 in L.A. from 27th to 29th of July. The company is going to the exhibition with a bigger team and partners to show the fresh new additions for 2010 (booth no. 612)

The company is planning booth presentations, a public event and V-Ray training in partnership with CGschool. Live demonstrations and real-world V-Ray production workflow discussions by experts in the Film and VFX, Architectural and Automotive industries such as Brian Smith from 3DATS, Oliver Heijmans/Senior Lighter/R@D from Mr X FX, Kevin Margo/CG supervisor from Blur Studio and many others are some of the spotlights at the booth. Visitors can get a sneak peek into the latest from V-Ray and V-Ray RT for 3ds Max and Maya, Phoenix FD, and Pdplayer. Presentations on V-Ray for Rhino and SketchUp, as well F_BOX picture shooter – the new web based rendering solution - will also be part of the demonstrations. F_BOX picture shooter is a product from Mackevision that allows the fast and easy creation of high-end 3D images through a web-based application.

The emphasis this year: the unprecedented V-Ray RT GPUs which is developed on the basis of V-Ray RT. This technology inherits the great interactivity and flexibility of the real time engine and brings it into the GPUs to achieve 15-20 times faster rendering process and lighting and shading set up. V-Ray RT on GPUs will be presented on the new 3DBOXX Extreme Edition with 4 GPUs provided with the kind of support of BOXX Technologies.

Following the beaten track of previous years, Chaos Group will host a public event for the V-Ray fans, resellers and partners. It will be conducted in Room 518 at the second floor on July 29th, 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm. The presentations on focus are: V-Ray RT on GPUs, V-Ray Pipelines - a demonstration on how the V-Ray rendering engine can be successfully integrated with post production tools to create powerful and reliable pipelines; V-Ray for Rhino and SketchUp - the latest developments and new features; Pdplayer – the professional image sequence player and viewer for the 3D, CG and VFX industry; and Phoenix FD – the grid-based simulator for smoke, fire and haze, F_BOX picture shooter.

For the first time, and in partnership with CGschool, Chaos Group presents a one of a kind V-Ray training workshop. The Best of V-Ray will be shown by Brian Smith at an exclusive 8-hour live training event in Room 518, 2nd floor on July 28th, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. Attendees get a free copy of 3DATS’s Ispirato book plus a chance to win “One Project” and “Advanced to Expert” books and V-Ray RT licenses. The instructor will show numerous V-Ray features that can be considered as ‘Power Tools’. These include tools such as proxies, displacement, the V-Ray Physical camera, and render elements. This class will be suitable for users of all skill levels, from beginners to advanced. Most files for this course will be provided in 3ds Max 2010 format, however suitable for users of V-Ray on other 3D software, as the vast majority of all the concepts will be the same. V-Ray for 3ds Max installations will be provided on site for participants without personal license.

For more information visit www.chaosgroup.com

The Board of Education for the School of Architecture in Lund, Sweden, together with guest Professor Sir Peter Cook, are preparing this year’s ASAE – Annual Symposium for Architecture and Education.

Celebrating the start of the semester they annually invite notable and well-known architects from all over the world to participate in a two-day symposium. Exciting lectures, discussions and critiques involve students and
professors as well as practicing architects and designers. With the help of merited guests they are hoping to achieve a broad spectrum of dialogue and an innovative approach to progressive architectural education.

This year the symposium will take a controversial subject: beauty. They are basing the symposium on Yael Reisner’s recent publication, Architecture and Beauty. Yael Reisner will be the honorable guest at the symposium, which is a public event taking place on 10-11 September 2010 at Lunds University. The architecture and beauty theme of the 2010 symposium will be open for a discussion about the troubled relationship between the two, and the significance and importance of the term “beauty” in relation to architecture.

Escape Studios has launched a brand new series of online mentored learning courses to meet the growing needs of international graduates looking to gain employment, and industry demand for fresh computer graphics talent.

The intensive twelve-month mentored learning course offers the same high quality, interactive training experience as Escape Studios’ flagship Visual Effects classroom course. Delivered via Escape Studios’ revolutionary e-learning platform, the course covers the techniques and tools required to start a career in visual effects, and provide the recruitment advice required to break into the CG industry.

Mentored learning is the ideal learning platform for international graduates who can’t travel to Escape Studios’ facilities in London or those who need to balance work and study commitments. All students get access to a virtual classroom, where they can interact and seek feedback from their tutors and fellow classmates. Escape Studios’ mentored learning programme is fully integrated with social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, allowing students to learn from Escape’s community and work together with their friends on projects.

As with all Escape Studios courses, students will also benefit from recruitment advice and help in securing their first job in the industry. It is estimated that 85% of all classroom students at Escape Studios go on to find future employment in the industry within a year, therefore career advice and introductions to industry contacts play a key role in the mentoring learning programme.

Dominic Davenport, CEO and founder of Escape Studios said: “We wanted to offer students wishing to study from abroad or part time, the same expert tuition they would experience in the classroom, without losing any of interaction or personal feedback.”

“Through our new mentored learning courses, we can now offer students outside of the UK, the right training they need to break into this competitive industry, from expert tuition to sound recruitment advice. Our support and guidance doesn’t end after the twelve month online course, we’ll help students fine tune their show reels and get that all important foot in the door to start their career. Only by nurturing fresh talent can we continue to drive excellence in the industry and meet international demand for highly skilled CG professionals.”

Framestore and Nokia today launched a competition inviting amateur animators and VFX enthusiasts to contribute ideas for an exciting new special effect for their new project, FX Studio.

FX Studio is a mobile and web-based application that allows people everywhere to add a range of Hollywood-quality special effects to their home movies. Using 3D marker technology and external rendering processes, the application is poised to deliver startling results.

FX Studio will feature a number of effects from a range of film genres.

Entrants to the competition have been asked to submit an idea for the final Sci-Fi special effect, which will feature on both the web and mobile versions of the FX Studio application.

Rather than focus on software skills, Framestore’s animation team will determine the winner based on the originality and creativity of the submissions.

The winner will not only work with Framestore to bring their idea to life, but also receive a commercial copy of Autodesk Maya Entertainment Suite 2011 and a Nokia N8 mobile phone, featuring a 12 megapixel camera, HD video recording and a HDMI output. Runners-up will also receive Autodesk software and a Nokia N8.

The competition is being hosted on Framestore’s Facebook page, at www.facebook.com/framestore

In addition to the competition, the page will give aspiring animators access to Framestore staff including creative director Dadi Einarsson - a member of the Oscar-winning The Golden Compass team - and animation lead Anthony Gibbs. The team will post updates throughout the app’s production, and field questions relating to all aspects of their creative process - including hints and tips for Autodesk Maya, the software through which FX Studio has been exclusively developed.

The FX Studio animation competition closes Sunday, August 1st, 2010.